Will and Testament
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: Post IW. Tony leaves twenty-three daily recorded messages on his Iron Man Mask aboard the Benatar, to the care of Pepper Potts. '. . . I am choosing to believe that you [will] receive this message someday. Whether or not you ever see me alive again is another thing but . . . maybe this mask will survive long after I do. So maybe you will hear this message one day. I hope you do.'
1. Message 1, 042818

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Avengers. Or The Wizard of Oz. Or Mad Max.**

**I saw the movie on Saturday, so I'm on . . . day seven of mourning Tony Stark. Yeah . . .**

_Message #1, 01:49 AM, April 28th, 2018_

Tony wished that he felt completely numb. His overwhelmed mind, his inanimate limbs, the searing stab wound in his abdomen. If it could all go numb and just stop searing every nerve end and corner of his brain with pain, you know, that would just be great.

"We must get off this planet," Nebula's low voice, usually unmarred by any inflection, was tainted by bitterness of emotion. The loss laid even her low. The cyborg, the daughter turned more machine than flesh, watched her father destroy half the entire world. Not just this world, but _all _worlds. In the wake of her sister's cruel murder, no less.

Tony couldn't speak. If he closed his eyes, he couldn't see the sprinkle of dust (_Peter_) scatter in the hot breeze of this post-apocalyptic planet. What did it matter, if they got off this planet or not? If they left or not? Got back to Earth or not? Did it matter if the stab wound currently screaming at him claimed his life? Who would want to live in this world after this? How could anyone—?

Who knew what Earth was like right now. If anyone he loved lived. He could go to all the effort of dragging his half-dead ass back to his home planet to find out that Pepper Potts was dead. That his fianceé was _dead_. If he said, "Rhodey?" and was met with someone's pleading eyes that told him everything, he didn't want back. Nope, he couldn't.

Then, he felt selfish. Look at him, bitching about not wanting to live while everyone around him, save this alien girl, disappeared right in front of them—and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was so used to winning, so used to fighting in this suit and saving the world, that seeing his worse nightmare play out in real life made him want to never open his eyes again.

But that was selfish.

"You can sit here and mourn all you want. But I won't stay here." Nebula commanded her limbs to move. Maybe this Terran didn't want to live, but _she_ did. She always fought to live. _So did Gamora. _Nebula staggered. She viewed this broken Terran with his closed eyes and wrinkled forehead with an ill combination of sympathy (an emotion she was new to) and annoyed determination in her eyes. "Despite what we've seen, we need to move on. I am all that you have left." She swallowed, refused to acknowledge her voice cracking a little. "Circumstances demand we become allies."

They'd been allies, briefly. An enemy of Thanos was a friend in battle. But the battle was over—over too quick, before it really began. It happened too rapidly, at such a heavy cost. For a plan of so many years, it culminated too quickly.

Tony didn't want to go home and see how many friends of his were dead. _Banner, Romanoff, Rogers. . ._ It was bad enough knowing that he dragged Peter Parker on this one-way ticket trip. Happy, May Parker. . . It was almost better not knowing.

Nebula approached him like he was a wounded animal, her pure black eyes analyzing him, anticipating a strike attack. But no. Underneath his crumbled armor was a wound that would've killed any other man not used to the fight—and the face of a man who had to take it all, and then some.

Tony met her eyes and inhaled. She was right. All they had was each other. And until they fought with their last breath to get back to Earth, that was it.

"All right, Tin Man. Let's go home to Kansas," Tony said, offering a hand.

Nebula's eyes squinted in confusion as she pulled him up. He quickly realized this was a terrible mistake as he almost fell over, his head ringing. Nebula supported his weight as he said, "Nope, that was a terrible idea."

"You've lost a great deal of blood," Nebula said.

"Yeah; strange, I noticed that, too," Tony murmured.

Yeah, numbness was a great wish. Also, impossible. It was a wish, anyway. Wishes were supposed to be impossible.

Why didn't he pass out? Why did he have to feel every wrack of pain every time he breathed as Nebula practically dragged him back into the Guardians' ship? He didn't ask why they were taking their ship instead of hers. All he could see were those pains-in-the-ass dissolving into thin air, one by one.

"Did you know them?" Tony murmured from the seat Nebula dumped him in.

Maybe she couldn't hear him as she rummaged through the ship, turning on flickering lights and examining power screens as she pressed buttons on the main dashboard. Maybe she was ignoring him, more focused on flying to Earth to gather an army of the rest of Tony's friends to take on Thanos. Maybe she knew where the _hell_ Thanos even was and they were going after him right now. Yeah, sure, right now was fine. Tony was just digesting the news he'd been haunted by for _years _that was just _now _happening; forget about the wound that he should've succumbed to by now. Nope, let's go after the bastard and take him on, just two against one!

Or maybe his murmur got caught in his throat and he hadn't made a single sound at all.

"They were my sisters' compatriots. I think they were more her family than I was, or so she thought," Nebula said, her voice cool and seemingly detached. She had a half-dead Terran on her hands; she had a mission. She needed his allies, since she had no other allies in the world. Go to his Earth, collect his allies, and go after Father. That was the plan. She pushed all thoughts of her sister having a family outside of her and focused on the task at hand. It'd be easier to rally allies around her if their ally, her responsibility, didn't die of his stab wound. Or of his broken heart. Either seemed a possible probability.

If he wanted to get all sentimental and give in to grief, fine. She was used to being the strong one. If she gritted her teeth and didn't think of her only sister being flung to death as a means to an end, used in a trade for one of those accursed Infinity Stones . . . If she had known that her father would succeed at the cost of her sister's life, would she have helped him? Probably, at the beginning. But definitely not now.

Not now; she had to get this piece of junk into functioning order, fly them to the nearest jump point, navigate to Earth, and hope that the Terran didn't die by the time she landed this bucket of bolts.

It was hopeless; after an hour of digging through the ship's functions and listening to the labored breathing of the dying Terran, his worn face and his blood-soaked shirt in her peripheral vision, Nebula felt like screaming through her gritted teeth. The explosions and blasts of battle left a broken shell of a ship in its wake. Its battery lights flickered like false hope; the choking light of the dying sun around this world faded away into plunging night.

"There's no chance of getting this ship flying in this darkness," Nebula said, finally sitting her heavy limbs in the seat next to Tony. "We cannot waste the ship's dying batteries to light the way. We'll have to wait until sunrise." Her black eyes searched out the driver's window for a star. She couldn't spy a single one. Of all the stars she'd known her whole life, not one of them showed up today.

Her eyes fell on Tony and she flew from her seat. The Terran laid against the chair with his blood adding more red to the sparking mask he held in his lap. "Wake up. Wake up!" Nebula demanded, smacking him. Her heart pumped painfully; no reaction. All slumped limbs; was it exhaustion or defeat that gave in to release? "Terran, wake up!"

She shook him and finally, desperate, sparked his wound with her metal hand. He released a primal groan from deep within his gut. His eyes popped open. Nebula refused to feel sorry as he cursed. "The hell was that, Furiosa?!"

"The name is Nebula," she seethed, "and the next time you fall unconscious will be the last time!"

"Yeah, well, the name's Tony Stark, not _Terran_—so let's get _that _straight—and is that a threat? 'Cause I thought we needed each other?!" Tony barked.

They stared at each other, Nebula with suppressed anger and relief that he woke up, Tony with exhaustion and adrenaline fighting for dominance within him.

"We do," Nebula said.

"Okay. Good. Let's start acting like it," Tony said.

"I need to fly this ship to Earth. It needs repairs but we won't get adequate light until morning," Nebula said.

"So we wait until morning. Fair enough." Tony closed his eyes and Nebula slapped him. Again. "Okay, what is _wrong _with you?"

"I won't let you fall unconscious while you have an open wound." Nebula stared past Tony as she pressed the correct buttons on her head to cast a light in the few inches in front of her eyes. Tony showed no betrayal of surprise. He was the one with constant new additions to his suits. Hers were just installed in herself, instead of a suit. She cast the light on his wound as she examined it with the cold, calculating eyes of a soldier who'd seen many wounds. "You can heal, but I must act quickly." She eventually located the medical kit while Tony fought to keep his eyes open. Further analysis caused Nebula to meet his eyes and say, "Do your hand blasters still work?"

Tony examined his palm. The blue energy glowed. "Yeah, why?"

"I think you know why," Nebula said in a low voice.

Yeah, he did. Nebula took an educated guess on what were the painkillers in the kit, but he still stifled a tortured scream as he turned his blaster on his own body. Maybe he thought the pain of the day couldn't get any worse. Maybe the smell of the red heat baking the desert wasteland, the battlefield his friends and quick-allies died upon, wasn't the _worst _smell he'd ever inhaled. Turns out that your own scorched flesh could be even worse.

"It's cauterized," Nebula said, once the deed was done and his ribs covered in white gauze.

"Now can I pass out?" he demanded through gritted teeth, like he wouldn't dare pass out under the pain without her knowing that he _could_ stay awake through the whole procedure.

"Be my guest," Nebula said.

* * *

Tony woke up a couple of hours later, the pain too _there_, demanding to be felt, to let him stay blissfully unconscious for long. He pushed away all the sudden memories, remembering how his life had been just twenty-four hours ago versus now. His sleep was dull but deep. He didn't have a single nightmare. Which was weird. The first break of restless sleep he got in five years.

Nebula slept in what looked like an uncomfortable position, curled away from him. If he tilted his head to look, he would've seen trails of tears down her cheeks.

He switched on his Iron Man helmet. Bruised, grey, sparking. Maybe he could fix it later. Pretend that he had anything left of what he used to have.

His fingers absentmindedly switched the recording device on. Huh. It still worked. His voice was soft. "Hey, Pep. It's me. It's . . . it's me. I'm stuck on some alien planet named Titan, previously undiscovered by anyone from Earth. I . . . you can probably tell—we lost. My worst nightmare come true. Literally. You, of all people, know that. Um, no, that's the second worst nightmare. My first is losing you and—" He looked away from the eyes of his mask, looked off into space. He blinked away tears and fought against giving in as he said, "I really hope that stays just that. Just a nightmare. I'm . . . I want to go positive on this. Sometimes I'm too positive but oftentimes I'm not it enough. Not that I'm not taking this all very seriously. I-I couldn't take it any more so . . . but . . . I am choosing to believe that you're still out there. That you're waiting for me. That you will receive this message someday. Whether or not you ever see me alive again is another thing but . . . maybe this mask will survive long after I do. So maybe you _will _hear this message one day. I hope you do. I love you, Pepper Potts. It's the end of the world right now, and I love you, so much." He stopped the voice recording to conserve its battery—who knew how long they'd be out here?

He set the mask down in his lap. He held it tightly to him, like a child with a security blanket or something. He felt the dull burning pain in his side as his eyes looked out into the blackness.

Tony wasn't religious. Never had. Never wanted to be. But right now, he said, "Hey God, if you're out there, do me a favor. Just, one thing. Protect Pepper Potts. I don't care if I make it back or not, just—make sure she's okay." 'Cause right now, she couldn't possibly be.

The pain claimed him back into its dark world. No longer would he enjoy the soft gift of mindless slumber. The physical pain mixed with the untouched grief; its depth mixed with the fire in his gut, and Tony endured the senseless, endless suffering until he saw the rise of another world's sun.

**ANGST. **

**'Cause everything is ANGST right now. Just is. Couldn't _not _be.**

**Thanks for reading. Please review. **


	2. Message 2, 042918

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own The Avengers. **

_Message #2, 09:22 AM, April 29th, 2018_

When Tony woke up, he thought it was maybe five minutes since he last jerked awake. The deep searing pain in his gut combined with general exhaustion, dehydration, and lack of food together to make his dull head ache worse than any hangover he ever had.

"You're alive," Nebula said, from across the ship.

Tony groaned, blinked his eyes rapidly to himself to stay awake. He ignored the flare of pain as he shifted in his chair so he could at least find out where Nebula was.

Man, this ship was trashed. The dying sun kept up enough orange light to flood the place. Panels mixed with engine parts; vents, screws, and pipes intermingled in a hot mess across the dirty floor. Tony found Nebula with her hand plugged into the mainframe of the ship. Sparks and noises rose from her metallic fingers as her black eyes stared back at him. "What are you staring at?" she hissed.

"Was the ship like this when we found it or was this all you?" Tony wondered.

"A combination of both. They lived like pigs. I am also trying to connect to the mainframe to run the ship's diagnostics, find out what exactly is wrong with it," Nebula said in a tone that suggested that she did not like explaining herself to anyone, especially a human.

"Hey, at least you know what pigs are. That's something we have in common. Well, not in common, but at least have available for mutual conversation," Tony said. His weak attempt at standing proved disastrous. He fell back with a wave of pain he couldn't hide. Nebula quickly withdrew her fingers from the ship's mainframe to be by his side. He pressed fingertips against his temple; if he could focus on the pain on his forehead, he could ignore the pain raging across his abdomen. "How long was I out?" he murmured, as a way to fill the air with conversation while Nebula, armed with the medical kit, unwrapped his wound to examine it.

"Over one cycle or about twenty-six of your Earth's hours," Nebula said absentmindedly as her studying eyes took in full extent of the wound. It was cauterized, yes, but there was still the burnt flesh to deal with. Sleep was the best medicine for him, so she let him be. Now she needed to locate water and wash the wound; hopefully find disinfectant liquid to sterilize it, some pain relief cream to soothe the harsh brown and black charred skin, standing even scarier against his pale but otherwise healthy white skin—

"Twenty-six hours?! You let me sleep that long and didn't bother to wake me?!" Tony scowled. In truth he was surprised. His last conscious memory was falling in and out of dozing, switching between nightmares and waking up in cold sweats to the memory of the nightmare he was living out in real life right now.

Nebula stood from her kneeling position. "You hadn't contradicted a fever. Sleep is good for wounds. And it kept your mouth shut. Let me get work done."

She left to invade the Guardians's living quarters for useable supplies while Tony scoffed. "I could help fix this ship, you know. I don't know if you know this, but I'm kind of a genius where I'm from."

"You can fix the ship when you can stand up on your own," was Nebula's level answer from around the corner.

When Nebula reappeared with her necessary supplies, Tony laid in a crumpled sprawl on the floor. She stopped and growled, "Stubborn man." Obvious attempts at standing again. Obviously, too soon.

She dragged him onto the messy table and watched his chest rise and fall. They were shallow breaths; any harder, and he pressed against the wound in his ribs. She administered the necessary medical care mechanically. She found no especial sorrow for his sorry state; at least he didn't complain, or cry out in pain. He ground his teeth and cursed when she went too hard, but he kept his groveling to a minimum. He knew real pain as well as she did. This was nothing of consequence, set against the backdrop of real pain.

"So," Tony said, staring at the torn paneling in the ceiling as it sparked and Nebula caused his skin to feel like it was on fire, "how's she looking?"

"Is it the wound or the ship you're referring to?" Nebula wanted to know.

"I'd hardly go assigning genders to wounds, so . . . the ship," Tony said. "I'd rather not live out the rest of my probably short days on Thanos's death planet."

Nebula stopped at the mention of his name. Her eyes stared unseeingly at the table. Her limbs tightened. She wanted to wring her father's neck. She wanted to lop off his head. She wanted him to feel every kind of exquisite pain she could bestow on him, and even then, he would never suffer as much as she did. "Agreed," Nebula said. "Comms are down. Weapons are offline. Engine's malfunctioning. Batteries are leaking and are in dire need of replacement."

"Okay. Nothing we can't fix," Tony said.

"_I _will fix it. I'm tired of death. I don't need you dying on me," Nebula said stiffly, standing up.

"Well, I will die. Of boredom. If you don't let me help. So," Tony said, accepting her offered hand as she pulled him up. She stared at him, with his hidden concealment of pain, his tightened jaw and screwed up face. "Give me something to fix."

"Not until you're healed," Nebula insisted. She slapped some painkiller pills into his hand. "Swallow these," she commanded him.

Tony knocked back the pills, wincing at the dryness of his mouth and throat. It took a few forceful gulps to let them fall back. "Look, where I come from, I'm usually the one who does the rescuing, so thanks, Prince Charming, but I'm okay. And," Tony sighed, "I _need _something to fix. Something for my hands to do, for my mind to focus on." His eyes told her that if he sat around doing nothing but letting his body heal, his mind would slowly become overwhelmed as he let his anxiety-ridden heart break. "I _need _to fix something. Especially after what happened, if I can't fix something, _anything_. . ." His eyes were hard and his face grief-stricken, "Then what _can_ I do?"

Nebula understood that need. He didn't want to feel useless. "I'll find you something," she said. "But first, rations." She smashed a bottle of water into his hand and said, "Make it last the day."

Tony gulped a few sips; maybe remaining unconscious was a good idea, if it conserved resources. Still, more than twenty-six hours—his body cried out for _something_. "How much do we have?" Tony called out as Nebula knocked around the ship's hidden cabinets.

"Maybe fourteen planet rotations' worth, of food and water," Nebula said. He sat on the edge of the table as she offered a silver packet. "Hopefully we won't need them all."

"Introducing hope as a viable option this late in the game is a dangerous idea," Tony said. "But then," he allowed, opening the packet, "it's all we've got."

Nebula never banked much on hope. "Unfortunately."

* * *

Tony felt a strange sense of déjà vu. He _knew _he was on a post-apocalyptic planet probably a million light years away from Earth, his only companion a female alien-cyborg who probably didn't care about him as a person so much as a bargaining chip. Or maybe just as a live companion. Love the one you're with, especially when everyone you knew died or disappeared around you. Yet in his mind, he was back in the cave in war-torn Afghanistan. He couldn't pull up full breaths from the pain of the wound in his chest, which should've, by all means, have killed him by now. It wasn't a laser-focused Nebula but a calm, thoughtful yet focused Yinsen working by his side. They were stuck here; hostages, really. The only way to escape was to work together. They were more than the sum of its parts. Without the other, there was no chance of getting home.

That was back in 2008. That was a lifetime ago. Yet, Tony still saw Yinsen's glassy eyes as he succumbed to his wounds, felt his last words given to him as a gift one last time. He carried those words with him, let them haunt him when he did wrong, let them fuel him to do well. _Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark. _

"They need to be alive," Tony said.

Nebula was inside the floor, learning the intricate web of interconnecting wires and systems of the ship. She poked her head out. "Who? The Snapped?" she snapped.

Tony stopped exploring the communications systems—he was hoping to offer a S.O.S. signal to any compassionate alien passersby. "No," he said, though a hole was cleaved in his chest as he said the words, "Well, yes, they _need _to be alive. But I _need _some of my friends on Earth to be alive. So we can get them back." He dug back into the wires, his mind focused on the wires instead of the pangs of anxiety and disbelief gnawing on his heart.

"Do you believe she's alive?" Nebula couldn't help a little curiosity in this strange travel companion of hers.

Tony stopped short. "Who?" Had she heard him in the middle of the night?

Nebula's eyes fell down, like she got caught in a secret she wasn't supposed to be in on. "This Pep," she said.

Tony's eyes fell away from her. "Pepper Potts," he said. "Yeah. I do. I have to." He drove his fingers deeper into the entrails of the ship, dividing the wires into different groups. Just like in 2008, he needed to get home to Pepper. He knew, in the back of his mind, of the remote possibility of his arriving on Earth to find her gone. But he couldn't think like that. He couldn't, or else he'd stop, and he'd never start again. Just focus on the wires. Just get the comms out. Try out the radio line. Intergalactic alien spaceships had radio lines, like American truckers, right? Well, he was hoping, anyway.

"Do you think she'll ever get your message?" Nebula's voice broke through. She didn't want to but . . . she remained stuck on this subject. She woke up to hear the human's low murmurs to his broken mask. She figured, since he was talking to himself, that he was either delusional from pain or recording. There was the soft, tender flavor of sentiment and affection in his voice as he spoke. For such a wound-weakened yet tough man, his words, usually so aggressive or sarcastic, were heartfelt. Nebula wondered that if you dug deep enough into her, if you got past all the armor and strength she wore for her father's approval, you could find as much heart in her as Tony Stark had in his body. She was surprised that she wanted to have that much heart. She'd deny it the moment it was said, of course. She could hardly admit it to herself.

It was a 'yes' or 'no' question, but Tony just said, "I hope so."

Nebula swallowed and disappeared into the floor.

Tony couldn't focus on the wires anymore. His thoughts returned to the cave. His three main thoughts while he was there: once he got out, Stark Industries would stop weapons manufacturing immediately; also, how much he wanted to live, and how much he wanted to see Pepper again. Now he let those other two thoughts slip away; he didn't care about his company anymore, or how much longer he'd live in this borrowed state, but he longed for Pepper with a sudden ferocity. Even the idea that she was dead this very second—he couldn't stand _that _thought—

Tony abandoned the wires and he almost fell across his chair. He caught himself and eased himself up; no utterance of pain, no need for help from a disgruntled Nebula. He ended up sliding to the floor. Fine. This worked. He propped up his mask on the floor across from him and winced as he sat back. When it fell over, he shifted it back up with his foot. He leaned his pounding head against the armrest of his chair and swallowed against his dry throat. He pressed the record button with the tip of his toe.

"Captain's Log, April 29th, 2018. Hey, Pepper. It's day . . . two, three? on this ship. Nothing much to report. Me and Little Miss Sunshine are trying to get this heap of junk in the air. We've got some consumable supplies ranging in long-term availability. Man, I hope the airlock holds. You know, once we're propelling through space. Also, I'm also hoping Nebula—my space buddy—knows how to navigate. My first time in space. Hopefully she understands." He let out a light scoff. "I'm banking a lot on hope, aren't I? Usually I can just get into things and fix them myself. You know me—I-I gotta do it myself. But, realizing that there are things I have no control over, and letting it go, well, that's something else, ain't it? I'm not used to it. I'm an old dog, Pepper. New tricks don't come easily, but I end up mastering them anyway.

"Anyway, I know it's only been two days, but . . ." It hadn't just 'been two days'. It'd been a lifetime full of huge historic losses of life. A worldwide event devastated all of living life. Tony bit his lip. "I miss you. I miss your voice. Call me back when you get this. Bye. Love you."

When he stopped the recording, he wished with all his heart that he was just leaving a voicemail message on her phone. What he would _give _if this was just a voicemail he knew she'd receive and hear . . .

Nebula looked up from the floor; it was too quiet. Had he passed out due to pain or fever? No. The human leaned against the armrest of his chair, one arm lying limply on the floor as the other cradled the mask in his lap. Normally Nebula was at a loss in the presence of someone crying. But given what they'd been through together, what they'd seen, she didn't look away. She didn't feel cold, or uncomfortable. Instead, she felt that unfamiliar but persistence pull of sympathy tugging at her heart again. Look at him. He still had hope to see his loved one again one day. While she had none.

She envied him as much as she pitied him.

**Thanks for reading! Review?**


	3. Message 3, 043018

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Avengers. Or Avatar. Or _Operation. _**

_Message #3, 1:48 PM, April 30th, 2018_

Nebula's nose wrinkled in disgust. Her face was usually unreadable, almost passive in its stolidity. When it changed form to show emotion, something the alien was loath to do, Tony knew something was wrong.

"Well? What's your well-informed medical opinion?" He laid on the table in the ransacked _Benatar _with his fused wound open to the stale recycled air and stared at the ceiling. Open wires and dust-smudged tubes of messy lighting were a distraction from the inherent pain forged deep in his gut.

"The cauterization is not working anymore," she said finally, her black eyes not meeting his. Her unmerciful fingers pressed against the black-crusted edges of his wound and he resisted the urge to scream. Pus and blood seeped through; liquid red entangled with the black chair and inflamed, agitated flesh. "An infection is spreading."

"Okay, okay, good to know where we stand," Tony said, his tone light, even as he wondered if he'd ever be able to stand again. "Got any more medical supplies?"

Without answering, Nebula left his side and rummaged through the hidden compartments of the ship. Disgusting, the way those Guardians and her sister lived. Hoards of dirty batteries, rusty tools, half-eaten bags of expired rations. Space dust, old blood, rust, smears of grease and oil everywhere—it was amazing the Terran hadn't given in to infection before. The red atmosphere of this ruined planet combined with the particles of waste and filth in this ship should've infiltrated his weak body cycles before.

Tony tilted his head—a lot of effort that pulled too much on his ribs (shouldn't have, but it did)—to see Nebula kicking a pillow under her feet. Even her frustration, usually in spurts if not hidden, must be released. "There's nothing, isn't there?" He almost swore under his breath. How did those idiots live here? They just entered life-or-death situations without adequate medical supplies in case of emergency? Tony turned back to the ceiling and imagined away the layers of sparking machinery. He imagined a black familiar sky and stars—stars of Earth. He'd spent many nights flying through the open dark sky—those familiar stars were always there. Now they weren't.

Despite their absence, they provided a much needed distraction from that which he knew he must do.

He had a last-ditch effort. It probably wouldn't work. It wouldn't. Probably.

"Hey, Neytiri, I need your help," Tony said loudly, over her rummaging and under-breath cursing of different forms of alien life. "Can you come here?"

"I _am _helping you, Terran," Nebula said in her low voice. "Just lie still; any moving will open the wound further. That would _not _be helpful."

"I have another idea and I need your help for it," Tony said, ignoring her.

"I have an idea and I intend to follow through on it," Nebula said, growling. "Lie still, Terran."

"Tony. Tony Stark. Tony Frickin' Stark, okay, Nebula?" Tony snapped.

Nebula stopped rummaging. He relented on his senseless nicknames. He let go of his flippancy; she would let go of hers. "What is your plan, Tony Stark?" she said.

Tony cleared his throat. Man, his throat was sore. They were still 3.45 hours away from their next ingestion of rationed water, but damn if he could glug an entire gallon of it right now. He shifted his head again, and regretted it. From within his bones, he felt on fire. If his suit was up and running, he knew its diagnostics would just tell him what he already knew: the infection was burning his body through like a flame eating up fuel.

Running diagnostics wasn't the only thing his suit could do, if they could bring it back to life.

They wouldn't need the suit for long. Just long enough to run the Cradle Program. Then, if there was juice left in the suit, they could run diagnostics on the ship to assess its injuries and figure out how to fix its internal processes.

"I need all the tools you got. Anything. I need your hands. I need your help." Tony's brown eyes met Nebula's solid black. She read the need, the begging, the asking, in his eyes. He couldn't do this on his own. He was far too weak, physically. He needed her.

It was odd, to be needed by anyone. Nebula nodded.

She grabbed all tools she could accumulate. His face drew into lines; she knew his energy was waning fast; she felt her pulse tighten and speed up; if he lost consciousness, she had no means of bringing him back around. She knew he had a heart and a brain, but they were Terran, foreign to her. She had no idea what systems she'd need to fix if his heart and brain went down.

"Ready?" he said, once, according to his direction, she helped him put on the broken Iron Man suit. It would only work if the suit was worn; its system would work just like a heart monitor—it tended to someone when it was on someone. Then she poised him in a sitting up position against some dirty pillows and blankets. He grimaced, his face contorting, but kept the complaining to a minimum. She admired this in him. Terrans had such a weak pain tolerance. He kept his snips and bites down when he could.

"Ready," Nebula said, her hands steady and tightened over two different pieces of metal—a medical probe and a wrench. That for the flesh and that for the machine.

Tony's face broke into a smile; sudden, unexpected, and inappropriate for the situation.

"What?" Nebula said tightly, her body strumming with nervous energy.

"We're playing _Operation_," Tony said, like a joke she was left out of.

"What is 'Operation?'" Nebula said, concerned.

"It's a game," Tony said, "a Terran game." He thought himself funny for referring to himself as an alien would.

"A game?" Nebula said. To her, games were mind-bending, manipulative, and divisive. There were losers and winners.

"Yeah, usually a fun game, but not in this context," Tony said.

If Nebula had eyebrows, they would've wrinkled. A furrow grew in the middle of her forehead. "What's 'fun'?" she wondered.

Tony affixed her with a _look_. "I know you're an alien and all, but seriously? 'Fun?' Never heard of it?"

Nebula gave a small shake of her head, her eyes steady on him.

Tony sighed. "I've got a lot to teach you. Mostly about human nature, but even fun should be a part of alien nature." He inhaled as deeply as he could, as if to purge the momentary humor from the situation (pain stabbed him over again, effectively doing the job) and said, "All right, Nebula. Let's fix me."

It was easier than Tony thought. Sure, his mind was weakened with dehydration, staved starvation, and a hungry fever eating away at his strength, but Nebula was an incredible asset. If there was someone he had to survive in a shipwreck on an alien planet with, practically, it was nice to have her. Used to following orders with strict regulation, her steady hands and gaze following his murmured instructions. She was used to working with flesh and machine mingled together. They were a little alike, in that sense.

It was simple, at the end of the day. The suit's systems were down and Tony just needed her to fix, if possible, the one system he needed: the dormant Regeneration Cradle System.

Dr. Helen Cho was a good friend and a genius fellow scientist. When Tony asked about the practical means of merging her Cradle program with his Iron Man suit, she was eager to help. Together, they interlaced its properties with the other systems already in place within the suit—the heart monitor, the blood pressure monitor, the systems for recording the different voluntary and involuntary body functions—and the Cradle Program was installed.

"What is the Cradle Program for?" Nebula said, as she fused three different wires in the wrist joint.

"It's a program my friend came up with," Tony said. "It prints organic tissue and grafts it to the pre-existing tissue."

Nebula stopped her work to look him in the face, her eyes squinting.

Tony sighed. Laymen's terms. "It can basically make homemade flesh and stitch it to wounds. We need to close this wound up; the program exists within the suit. We just need to get it functioning again. That is, if the simulacrum tissue-melding mechanism hasn't been destroyed when this suit got busted up. . ." Tony suddenly wished he could tear off this dirty, melted piece of himself. He wished he could throw off this suit and exist solely in the flesh. A hot shower would be nice too, while he was at it.

"There's a chance this will be all for nothing," Nebula said.

"Yeah, there is. But it's our only chance. It's _my _only chance," Tony said. "Without it, this wound will get consumed by this infection. I'll succumb to this infection and I will die on this shipwreck." He didn't add, "In the middle of space, with no loved ones, nobody knowing that I'm dead except this semi-apathetic female alien." Nobody else would know, and he wondered if there was anyone still out there in the world who would even care.

"Well," Nebula said, an inflection of humor popping up in her tone for once, "we wouldn't want that."

Tony allowed a uptick of his mouth, but that was all he had strength to do as he craned his neck to watch the delicate surgery she performed on his suit. He was surprised by how well she followed his quiet instructions—almost like she had an intuition. He knew the way to the destination, but it was like she knew all the turns they'd take, the names of the roads they'd travel.

The hours ticked by. All her movements, adjustments, and fusings were minute, for the internal computers and mechanisms in the suit were miniscule and precise. "You know, for not by trade being either a surgeon or a mechanic, you're a natural at this," Tony said after a while, when the silence held nothing but occasional blips of sparks flying, gears turning, or systems flickering abruptly on.

Nebula wouldn't meet his eyes, despite his conversational tone. They never left the rupture in the left arm sparks were currently flying from. The heat would've singed her flesh; good thing she had metal fingers. Their receptors allowed her to feel pain, but they also allowed her to enjoy a higher pain tolerance. Well, that and having felt such undeniable, chronic pain on the daily raised her pain tolerance, too.

It was truly an unearthly, inhumane blast of pain her father struck through her to get Gamora to confess to the Soul Stone's location.

"When your sister is the one you're forced to fight and your father is the one who rips you up every time you lose, you find out that you are the only one left to lick your wounds," Nebula said suddenly.

Tony almost sat straight up, but Nebula's grip on his arm and the pain instantly searing up his abdomen were enough to keep a man down. "I'm sorry, what?" he said sharply; was his mind boggled? Did he lose some of her words? Or was she just saying nonsense? Maybe the universal translator on-board was malfunctioning and all he heard was her alien dialect.

Nebula stiffened, sighed. She said too much—again. "It does not matter," she said, resuming her focus. Push the emotions aside, focus on the task at hand. She swallowed. It was better that way.

As much as Nebula wanted to _not _have this conversation, Tony very much _did _want to have this conversation. "Hold on, let's backtrack here," he said. "You and your sister used to fight, and when you lost, your dad would _rip you up_?"

Nebula swallowed the urge to punch this Terran. He didn't understand. How could he? He didn't grow up with Thanos. "It's not as simple as that," she said.

"Yeah, I think it kinda is," Tony said. "Is there any other way to explain it? I know Thanos is a sociopath who thinks he did the whole world a big favor when he—he killed half of everyone," he stuttered—from anger, from not wanting to admit the truth out loud—the horrible, ugly, soul-crushing truth—"but still! You can hate everyone and still love your kids."

"Love was not part of Thanos's vocabulary," Nebula said. "Mercy and peace were, however. He used them quite a lot for someone ignorant of their true meanings." Her last few words hissed with venom as she finished recalibrating the ejection sites in Tony's right palm.

"Is that why he did it?" Tony asked after a long period of silence.

"Did what?" Nebula wondered. Despite his protestations, she had a laundry list the length of this ship of the crimes of Thanos—all of which were justified, in his mind. Which of the innumerable crimes of her powerful father was the Terran referring to? No doubt the mass murder of half of creation's existence—

"Made you two fight? You and your sister? I'm an only child, but I'm assuming that when siblings fight, it's more playful and . . . bonding, I guess, instead of intentionally cruel," Tony said. "So, I'm assuming you were both forced to."

"Evolution. Development of skills. So we both became better, stronger," Nebula said. Her eyes blinked; her focus on the motherboard flickered. She said, not looking at Tony's arm, but at her sister and father, "I could never be Gamora's equal. She won, every time. I paid for my weakness every time. We were both chosen to be children of Thanos. My father might us fight to prove ourselves worthy of that title."

"It's a batshit title to want," Tony said.

Nebula's face contorted and she short-circuited a wire on purpose, sending a ripple of electricity into Tony's hand. He cursed at the sudden flare of pain and Nebula said, "There was a time when it was _all _I ever wanted." She then threw herself into her mechanical surgery. She no longer wanted to participate in this conversation. Her renewed efforts and insensibility to his pain would hopefully show Stark this.

All he said was, "Well, that makes two of us with daddy issues."

She twisted. He grimaced. "Fine. Let's put a pin in it. Get off this bunny trail, circle back around to the task at hand."

She successfully installed one of the few batteries she found rolling under the seats. It was solar-powered; its energy waned and faded out like a tide as she gave it a final twist in its installation. They wouldn't need it for long. It would give out before the cycle ended. She just hoped that this plan was done before it petered out.

"And . . . that's it," Tony said. He met her eyes as she sat back on her heels. He gave her a little nod. "Good job."

She gave him a solid nod.

"Let's give her a spin." Tony manually keyed in the program prompts into his suit. He wished Friday was still working, but that was too much to hope for. The system, charging off the solar energy source, whirled to life. It coughed and shuddered, but stayed on; the florescent blue glowed against his suit as he poised his palm over the wound. Nebula had discarded the pieces of crushed and molten metal of the middle of the suit to fully expose the deep gash.

"I hope this works on other planets besides Earth. Oh well, here we go," Tony said off-handedly, even as he devoted his own pained focus to his surgery. For a half-second he thought about letting Nebula guide his powered hand across the wound, but decided that she had done enough. She had done far more for him than he'd ever do for her. He could handle this.

Nebula watched, hiding her nerves, as Tony once again turned his hand on his own body. Instead of blasting himself with the last of his energy, however, he simply guided Helen Cho's technology over his gut.

And the program worked. It whipped beams of energy and light in a complex dance across the accursed flesh. Instantly the charred flesh and the rotting flesh alike disappeared as it was replaced with healthy pink tissue. Tony was used to being a combo of human tissue and metal; if he was stuck becoming 3% synthetic, he could live with that. But it was amazing—every stitch was organic—himself.

Nebula's eyes consumed this display of technology with a hunger Tony didn't notice until the last chasm in his gut was closed.

Tony's head fell back and he breathed out. Then he stopped short; he breathed in and out again. Each exhale and inhale didn't cost him a crap-load of pain anymore. He lifted his head to look at the long scar he'd have; his fingers pressed against the new skin; tender, a little too yielding, but a thousand miles from what it was. He dropped his head back and let out a laugh from deep in his belly.

He couldn't remember the last time he laughed.

He said, "I think it's fair to say that I'm the king of making do in less than ideal circumstances."

"Do me," Nebula said suddenly, insistently.

Tony lifted his head back, all amusement wiped from his face. "Use this"—holding up his hand—"on you? Don't tell me you've been hiding this mortal wound out of some sense of martyrdom—"

"I am not wounded, but I am made of pain and splices of elements," Nebula said. "I long to be rid of what makes me machine, what replaces _me_. Here." She offered her hand; it trembled, even as her metal palm held out like a beggar asking for alms, for something, _anything_. She held up a knife from the pocket along her shin and said, holding it like a machete over her wrist, "If you need a wound for it to work, so be it."

"Yo, I don't think this was made for regenerating _appendages_, sweetheart!" Tony said. He was too weak to wrestle the knife out of her hand and the determination in her eyes told him she wasn't bluffing.

He couldn't have planned the suit's system overload if he tried. He also couldn't stop it, if he tried. The energy source burned too bright and suddenly the entire suit glowed with increasing heat. He cursed as he frantically started trying to peel off the molten pieces of metal.

Nebula dropped the knife and quickly pulled the hot metal from his hands. It broke off at his shoulders, exposing wires and breaking the suit. She didn't care. He worked on his other arm as she disengaged the suit enfolded over his left leg. The right leg wouldn't come off properly. The knife she threatened to cut off her hand with ripped the metal down the length of his leg, allowing her to free it as she threw the useless hunk of burning junk into a corner of the ship.

Tony sat up, scrambling away from the remnants of his beloved suit's corpse. He stood by Nebula's side; together, they watched sparks fly from the broken systems; the blue light gave out, like a candle in the wind. Snuffed, and gone.

Tony's eyes flickered to the mask by the captain's chair; he still had the mask. Then, gulping, he looked from the burned mess to Nebula. That was her one chance.

"I'm sorry—" he said, but she cut him off.

"Doesn't matter," she said, not meeting his eyes as she hurried away into another part of the ship, to conceal her disappointment and heartache.

Tony didn't go after her; she gave him so much; let him at least give her this. "Thank you!" he called after her.

Her silence made him wonder if she heard him or not.

Tony inspected the rest of his body, but he'd secured no severe burns from the suit's malfunction. He was deeply relieved about the healing of his deep stab wound, though. Tired from the procedure, yes, but _relieved_. He felt, for the first time in a long time, despite his exhaustion, just a little giddy.

He grabbed the mask and falling into one of the Guardians' seat, turned it on. "Ship's log, day three . . . three? onboard this super-gross shipwreck. Good news, Pep. I'm fixed. Well, as fixed as I can be. I got marooned with a girl who can heal as well as she can destroy, no matter what she says. I owe Helen Cho a big hug when I get home; I'll admit that she's smarter than me, that her technology is way better than my suits ever could be, anything and everything." He didn't say how Nebula wanted to destroy herself to become like everyone else; didn't say that Helen Cho might be dead; didn't say that he might not make it home at all. He just said, "Though, I think I prefer playing Operation with you. I found a good replacement, though, seeing as you decided that you're never sticking medical instruments in any orifice of my body ever again.

"Anyway, thought that was a nice throwback. Miss you, would be up for playing actual _Operation _when I get home, if you feel so inclined. If you were too traumatized by the real life version, I'll give you that. I'll give you anything. Whatever makes you happy, Pep," Tony said, staring into the eyes of his mask—all he had left of his suit now, all he had left of Pepper—"that's all I ever want, too."

**Look at me pretending to know a single thing about melding science and technology within the medical field, LOL. Hopefully the Regeneration Cradle makes sense (I still don't get it in all its entirety) and don't worry; we _will _get into Tony and Nebula's individual daddy issues and terrible back-stories—just at a later point. **

**Thanks for reading! Review?**


	4. Message 4, 050118

**_Soli Deo gloria _**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Avengers.**

_Message #4, 20:05, May 1st 2018 _

"If we don't get this hunk of junk out of the atmosphere, we don't stand a chance," Nebula sighed.

"It's not like we stand much of a chance of rescue if we make it out into deep, dark, cold space anyway, right?" Tony wondered.

Nebula glared at him. It would take the end of the world to prove her an optimistist, but could he at least not provoke the situation by delving into the dark hole of pessimism? It was hard enough for her to persist in fighting the pull into the hole pessimism wanted to drag her into—he could at least _try _to resist it, too.

"Our comms are down. No one knows where we are stuck on this planet. We need to at least get out onto the highway," she said.

"No one's gonna come help us. This is more than just a flat tire. This is complete and utter engine failure," Tony argued, wiping away the grease staining his brow. They'd just spent fruitless hours tinkering with this thing. She was well-versed in systems of space craft and he usually could understand any system if he hung out with it long enough. It was truly a waste of resources to continue if Tony Stark, the guy who made a freaking homemade rudimentary Iron Man suit while being held hostage in the Middle East, wanted to call it quits.

Nebula stood and hissed sternly, "No one will help us if they don't know we are here. We need to be out there so they can see us!"

"Oh yeah, so we can stick out our thumbs and hope some good Samaritan wants to pick up some alien hitchhikers?" Tony said, his head lolling.

Nebula looked down at him, her voice even and cold as she said, "The world is in shambles. We all need to help each other, as we have been vanquished by a common enemy—my father. While most species fight, I'm sure even the most cold-hearted can find it in themselves to help the survivors."

"Did it ever occur to you that there might not be any survivors out there? That you and me are the only living, breathing _things _for _light years _around us?" Tony demanded to know.

"That won't be true," Nebula said.

"You seem so sure," Tony said, almost accusatory.

"I am sure," Nebula said. "Though my father could not pick and choose who died, he did choose one thing." She knelt beside him and stared at him, straight and true, into Tony's unblinking eyes. "Balance."

Tony blinked. He yielded. Let's give Space Girl what she wants, however futile it might be. Waking up in extreme pain this morning into the realization that they had yet another day to face like this didn't have the same caffeine kick as coffee would've had, but now it would have to prove to be enough. "All right, Nebula. What's your plan?"

Nebula blinked. Exhaled a sigh and looked away, too ashamed to say what she must while looking him in the eyes. "I don't know."

Despite the low rations, the dull aftermath of pain still riddling his body, and the trauma seared into his brain, Tony's mind worked overtime. That's what it did. In the wake of death haunting him, day and night, his mind fought against sinking into its depth. It kept swimming, even if just to keep his spirit alive. "But then, I might have a plan." They met eyes. He cocked his head. "It's a stupid plan. Might not work. Might kill us."

"Staying on this planet one more day will kill us," Nebula said.

"Then, let's implement said stupid plan," Tony said seriously.

Nebula allowed a bow of her head. "Agreed."

* * *

Nebula growled to herself as she hauled broken equipment free from the ventilation system to jumpstart the batteries the best she could. "This—is a _stupid _plan," she shouted, not bothering to only talk to herself. She didn't care if Tony heard her. He _knew _it was a stupid plan. A terrible plan. An if-we-weren't-doomed-already-this-is-it kind of plan. She hated herself for going along with it, for playing her part.

But it was the only plan they got. Neither of them were accustomed to giving up the fight to play the part of sitting ducks to their own deaths. They fought against it the hardest they could. They fought against Thanos the hardest they could and in the blink of an eye, he tore their friends away from them without a qualm. They could at least fight for themselves now, even if their heart was no longer in it. No, Tony's heart was hopefully beating in the chest of a female Terran a million light years away; as for Nebula's heart? It still beat, almost against her better judgment; if she thought about it too much, she hoped it would just disappear. One couldn't feel pain if the pain disappeared, right?

"Are you ready?" Tony's voice sounded muffled outside the spaceship. If they were stranded on a planet with less gravity, he would be jumping around like some idiot to get her attention. Instead he wore his battle-scarred mask (his most precious material possession at this point—which is a hard thing to choose, for a billionaire)—and held the last remnants of the hands of his Iron Man suit. If his beautifully built suit was a long tall drink of water, the torn, broken pieces of blaster he rewired along his arms were the dregs.

"Give me a minute!" Nebula yelled as she ran through the cabin. She flipped switches, pulled on levers, and wished they had more battery power to fuel the lines. All they had was a battery that would occasionally flicker to life like burning embers instead of roaring awake, ready to go, and a coughing engine so choked with the red dust of Titan that if Tony even got it to spin, that would be beyond what she expected.

Their battle with Thanos on Titan had wreaked havoc on the planet's already weakening atmosphere. The fact that Tony could breathe the filthy air and not keel over from the chemicals battling in his throat—and the fact that the universal translator, of all things, wasn't broken—was beyond Nebula's imagination. If she thought about them too hard, she earned herself a headache—not that headaches were infrequent when her head was 37% inorganic material.

The engine's glow was disheartening; the choke of its strangulation made Nebula want to pump it full of bullets, just to put it out of its misery. It would take a miracle to get this thing in the air; it would take twice that to break through the atmosphere. This planet's atmosphere _was _comparatively weaker put against the other planets Nebula had visited, but _still—_it was a strong force that kept the pieces of Titan from swirling out into the harsh vacuum of space. Not only did they welcome this vacuum, but she and Tony _desperately _wanted it. They _fought _to be flung out into the open, heartless vacancy of space.

"Stark!" Nebula roared as she gave it all she got. "Now!"

Tony breathed in deep; he'd spent the last hour tinkering around with his hand blasters; by all means, they shouldn't fire up at all. They were cashing in their last chances on these broken pieces of fragmented equipment and there was a chance he couldn't light up at all. But then, he was desperate. Desperation was just a much a fuel as the adrenaline kicking his heart into gear. He woke up his blasters and his exhale was weak but relieved when they lit up a faint baby blue. His tired arms protested but his mind fought them into submission as between his weak reserve of strength and the last hurrah of his blasters, he pushed against the corpse of a ship and hoped it would be enough.

Nebula didn't breathe in relief when she felt the spaceship give from its spot nestled in Titan's torn-up terrain. She gritted her teeth as the ship shook, buckling under the flow not of air as they rose into the dust-colored clouds, but into the chemical mix making up the shell around the planet. They had some momentum—something was catching air—or whatever it was—it was amazing Stark hadn't caught any of the fire exuding from the engine. It wasn't the normal fire of a blast-off feeding off the oxygen in the air—it was the death of a machine.

They were getting close to the atmosphere—Stark needed to get inside the _Benatar _before they exited the atmosphere. His suit wouldn't protect him if he fell back to the planet from space again.

Comms down, her voice would get lost in the roar even if she screamed her mechanical lungs out for Stark to enter the ship. He was pushing the stern of the ship; he couldn't see her by the dirty windows at the bow. Nebula couldn't alert him. She just hoped he was genius enough to get a clue to get buckled in, 'cause they were in for a wild ride.

Tony slowly released his hold on the ship and ignored the feeling of relief he got when the ship didn't immediately flounder and go under the moment he let it go. He crept along the top of the ship, not trusting his blasters to let him fly in the space around it. The force of the lift-off threatened to suck him down, but he held on tight.

He rap-tapped on the dirty glass of one of the windows; Nebula didn't hear him. If she hadn't caught sight of him awaiting entry on the starboard side of the ship, he would've gone on knocking. They hadn't thought they'd get this far; they were winging it from here on out.

She lowered the window and screamed, "GET IN!"

Tony pulled his way in and his weight gave out and he slumped into a side paneling. Nebula didn't rise to aid him, as she was too busy flying this hunk of junk. "We're about to break through!" she shouted.

Tony flung off his mask so he could cough before he said, "I got that."

"Strap in! It's going to get rough!" Nebula said, as he dragged himself to the first mate's seat.

"And it wasn't rough before?" Tony inquired.

Nebula didn't yell; she just gave him a half second's full-on glare before she focused all her attention on navigating them through this rough atmosphere. She screamed as the ship shook like all its parts would fall away as they entered a blast of light—and Tony stared straight ahead. If they got through it, great. If not . . . well . . . they tried.

And suddenly it was done. They were done. No red light surrounded them, no energy, no barrier to break through. Suddenly, the smoke disappeared and they were floating, weightless, in the darkness of cold, heartless space. Nothing but distant stars and piercings of far away lights letting them know that they weren't totally alone. And it was silent, and anticlimactic, and they could both suddenly breathe.

"Wow," Tony said. The first time he'd ever truly gone up in space, his mind was just a tad bit too preoccupied to actually, like, _look _at space. The rest of the times afterward, being in space somehow always landed as second priority on his to-do list. Now . . . it was all he had left.

Nebula, however, lived her life in space-travel; she'd been to innumerable planets, spent too many hours of her life as a passenger, and so had had time enough to gaze upon the star-studded plains. "We need to find a jump-point," she said, even as her fingers danced across the controls. She huffed to herself; her fiddling was useless; she knew this, yet she flipped each switch another dozen times and pressed each button until it threatened to stick. They'd given _everything _they got to break through the atmosphere; their energy levels, both the ship's and their personal, were dwindling into nonexistence.

They couldn't save themselves. They'd have to be rescued. And there was no one, friend or enemy, who knew where they were.

"It's . . . for so long, mankind has wanted to fly across the stars," Tony said. "Now I get the chance to, and I think I'm more of an ungrateful recipient than most."

"You think?" Nebula quipped, glancing up at him before unbuckling herself from the captain's seat and wrestling herself under the front control panel.

Tony leaned back in his chair. By his side sat his scarred mask. His eyes never leaving the incredible, seemingly endless sea of space, he turned on the recording device; light shone out of the hole of his mask. "Day . . . four? Five? Doesn't matter. Pep, I can see the stars. Not our stars. What I would give to see _our _stars; no, but stars nevertheless. There are more than I can count, Pep. Our astronomers would be having a field day if they were here right now. I wish I could switch places with them. I'd rather be on Earth with you, babe. But still, Pep . . ." He couldn't help the smile 'cause his mind was, for once, struck with awe, "It's still a nice view."

**Thanks for reading! Review?**


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